Historical text by DatBTrue, written between 2008 and 2016 and reproduced verbatim. It records what was argued then; it is not dosing guidance and not medical advice. Read the disclaimer.

EasyEJL your mind is just wasted when it is mixed in with all the “fluff” posts at AM. You mentioned something that to my mind is an awesome area of research with tremendous potential to make people less susceptible to cancer, better cardiovascular profiles, better memory & less damage to brain, lower oxidative stress, much better insulin sensitivity, prolonged life, …just on and on…there are a lot of studies going back to the 1940’s that demonstrate these positive effect…

I became very interested in every other day calorie restriction when I experimented for years with it on myself and found that if I alternated between:

a day of very low calories (say between 1000 & 1400) w/ food intake primarily at the beginning and end of the day & cardio exercise(s) in the earlier portion of the day followed by no food intake for several hours…

and a day where I ate at about maintenence w/ a higher intake of carbs around a session of weightlifing.

I could readily lose fat & retain muscle. In fact I always made minor but consistent strength gains and felt mentally sharp & had energy during the fasted portion of low cal day.

I have been researching a pattern of eating involving a day of eating less then 20% of maintenance calories (or a complete fast) followed by eating freely (but not excessively). I have very little doubt that this pattern is as beneficial as calorie restriction diets in promoting longevity. But has the advantage of preserving body mass.

It is interesting that on fasted days there is no depletion of glycogen from muscle, circulating levels do go down but stores are drawn from the liver. I conjecture that during periods of no energy intake the body preserves muscle as best it can (at least in the 24 hour period) so that the homo sapien can use his strength to obtain more energy. *

What is interesting is that the following non-fasted day when energy intake is occurring the body is more insulin sensitive. In fact over time w/ this pattern of eating the body can become up to 7 times more insulin sensitive.

The area that I am attempting to reconcile is whether the use of GHRH/GHRP-6 to restore youthful GH levels (and a little higher IGF-1 levels) undermines the longevity benefits of alternate day calorie restriction?

Resveratrol I suspect is not the answer to longevity in humans even though it mimics many of the transcriptional aspects of calorie restriction. It has been shown not to extend lifespan in normal mice. **

Eating at 60% of maintenance every day is not desirable, but EOD calorie restriction might be the answer to health and longevity while maintaining the body in a fit muscular state.

  • – “With the present fasting protocol and maintenance of habitual daily physical activity in the fasting periods, we had expected to detect a decrease in IMTG content in the skeletal muscle. The fact that this was not seen and that muscle glycogen content was unchanged could suggest that skeletal muscle is not immediately involved in recognition of acute energy oscillations.” -Effect of intermittent fasting and refeeding on insulin action in healthy men, Nils Halberg, J Appl Physiol 99: 2128-2136, 2005

** – Resveratrol delays age-related deterioration and mimics transcriptional aspects of dietary restriction without extending life span, Pearson KJ , Cell Metab. 2008 Aug;8(2):157-68.